Cash for Clunkers

As my car nears the 230k mile mark, I have been checking into what my best options are (sell, trade or donate), especially as Bessie sits in our garage, unwilling to start at the moment (hoping it will just be a battery issue, but haven’t had time to get it checked out).

Kelly Blue Book tells me she is not worth much these days, though interesting to note – she seems to be worth a couple hundred more now than when I checked back in 2007. Funny.

Anyway, this is a topic I have been chewing on, almost since the day I bought her. I can’t believe I have owned this car this long (15 years!) or that she has as many miles on her as she does. Bessie has been fairly inexpensive to maintain, but I am now starting to spend $1k+ or so per year on her and I am wondering when do I stop ‘investing’ and simply let her go?

I was seriously thinking about donating her, but I just heard of a program called Cash for Clunkers that President Barack Obama officially signed into law as part of a larger defense spending bill today. The program is supposed to start at the end of July, and the government will give people $3,500 for scrapping gas guzzlers if they buy new cars that go at least four miles further on a gallon of gas, or $4,500 if the new vehicle gets 10 miles more per gallon.

I would not consider Bessie to be a gas guzzler as she gets about 18 miles per gallon right now, but the latter would apply, which means my only option would probably be a Prius, but me thinks I need to go on a couple of test drives and see if there is something that sparks my fancy just to add another complicated layer into my decision making process. 🙂

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